The argument from reason is an argument against naturalism and for the existence of God (or at least a supernatural being that is the source of human reason). The best-known defender of the argument is C. S. Lewis. Lewis first defended the argument at length in his 1947 book, Miracles: A Preliminary Study; in the second edition of Miracles (1960), Lewis substantially revised and expanded the argument.

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Metaphysical (or philosophical) naturalism is the view that nature as studied by the natural sciences is all that exists. Naturalists deny the existence of a supernatural God, souls, an afterlife, or anything supernatural. Nothing exists outside or beyond the physical universe.

The argument from reason seeks to show that naturalism is self-refuting, or otherwise false and indefensible.

According to Lewis,

One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the naturalistic worldview].... The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears.... [U]nless Reason is an absolute--all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction, they ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.

More precisely, Lewis's argument from reason can be stated as follows:

1. No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes.

Support: Reasoning requires insight into logical relations. A process of reasoning (P therefore Q) is rational only if the reasoner sees that Q follows from, or is supported by, P, and accepts Q on that basis. Thus, reasoning is trustworthy (or "valid", as Lewis sometimes says) only if it involves a special kind of causality, namely, rational insight into logical implication or evidential support. If a bit of reasoning can be fully explained by nonrational causes, such as fibers firing in the brain or a bump on the head, then the reasoning is not reliable, and cannot yield knowledge. Consider this example: Person A refuses to go near the neighbor’s dog because he had a bad childhood experience with dogs. Person B refuses to go near the neighbor’s dog because one month ago he saw it attack someone. Both have given a reason for staying away from the dog, but person A’s reason is the result of nonrational causes, while person B has given an explanation for his behavior following from rational inference (animals exhibit patterns of behavior; these patterns are likely to be repeated; this dog has exhibited aggression towards someone who approached it; there is a good chance that the dog may exhibit the same behavior towards me if I approach it). Consider a second example: person A says that he is afraid to climb to the 8th story of a bank building because he and humans in general have a natural fear of heights resulting from the processes of evolution and natural selection, he has given an explanation of his fear, but since his fear results from nonrational causes (natural selection), his argument does not follow from logical inference.

2. If naturalism is true, then all beliefs can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes.

Support: Naturalism holds that nature is all that exists, and that all events in nature can in principle be explained without invoking supernatural or other nonnatural causes. Standardly, naturalists claim that all events must have physical causes, and that human thoughts can ultimately be explained in terms of material causes or physical events (such as neurochemical events in the brain) that are nonrational.

3. Therefore, if naturalism is true, then no belief is rationally inferred (from 1 and 2).

4. We have good reason to accept naturalism only if it can be rationally inferred from good evidence.

5. Therefore, there is not, and cannot be, good reason to accept naturalism.[1]

In short, naturalism undercuts itself. If naturalism is true, then we cannot sensibly believe it or virtually anything else.

In some versions of the argument from reason, Lewis extends the argument to defend a further conclusion: that human reason depends on an eternal, self-existent rational Being (God), this extension of the argument from reason states:

1. Since everything in nature can be wholly explained in terms of nonrational causes, human reason (more precisely, the power of drawing conclusions based solely on the rational cause of logical insight) must have a source outside of nature.

2. If human reason came from non-reason it would lose all rational credentials and would cease to be reason.

3. So, human reason cannot come from non-reason (from 2).

4. So human reason must come from a source outside nature that is itself rational (from 1 and 3).

5. This supernatural source of reason may itself be dependent on some further source of reason, but a chain of such dependent sources cannot go on forever. Eventually, we must reason back to the existence of eternal, non-dependent source of human reason.

6. Therefore, there exists an eternal, self-existent, rational Being who is the ultimate source of human reason, this Being we call God (from 4-5). (Lewis, Miracles, chap. 4)

On 2 February 1948, Oxford philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe read a paper to the Oxford Socratic Club criticizing the version of the argument from reason contained in the third chapter of Lewis's Miracles.

Her first criticism was against the use of the word "irrational" by Lewis (Anscombe 1981: 225-26), her point was that there is an important difference between irrational causes of belief, such as wishful thinking, and nonrational causes, such as neurons firing in the brain, that do not obviously lead to faulty reasoning. Lewis accepted the criticism and amended the argument, basing it on the concept of nonrational causes of belief (as in the version provided in this article).

Anscombe's second criticism questioned the intelligibility of Lewis's intended contrast between "valid" and "invalid" reasoning, she wrote: "What can you mean by 'valid' beyond what would be indicated by the explanation you would give for distinguishing between valid and invalid, and what in the naturalistic hypothesis prevents that explanation from being given and from meaning what it does?" (Anscombe 1981: 226) Her point is that it makes no sense to contrast "valid" and "invalid" reasoning unless it is possible for some forms of reasoning to be valid. Lewis later conceded (Anscombe 1981: 231) that "valid" was a bad word for what he had in mind. Lewis didn't mean to suggest that if naturalism is true, no arguments can be given in which the conclusions follow logically from the premises. What he meant is that a process of reasoning is "veridical", that is, reliable as a method of pursuing knowledge and truth, only if it cannot be entirely explained by nonrational causes.

Anscombe's third objection was that Lewis failed to distinguish between different senses of the terms "why", "because", and "explanation", and that what counts as a "full" explanation varies by context (Anscombe 1981: 227-31); in the context of ordinary life, "because he wants a cup of tea" may count as a perfectly satisfactory explanation of why Peter is boiling water. Yet such a purposive explanation would not count as a full explanation (or an explanation at all) in the context of physics or biochemistry. Lewis accepted this criticism, and created a revised version of the argument in which the distinction between "because" in the sense of physical causality, and "because" in the sense of evidential support, became the central point of the argument. (This is the version described in this article.)[2]

More recent critics have argued that Lewis's argument at best refutes only strict forms of naturalism that seek to explain everything in terms ultimately reducible to physics or purely mechanistic causes.[3] So-called "broad" naturalists that see consciousness as an "emergent" non-physical property of complex brains would agree with Lewis that different levels or types of causation exist in nature, and that rational inferences are not fully explainable by nonrational causes.[4]

Other critics have objected that Lewis's argument from reason fails because the causal origins of beliefs are often irrelevant to whether those beliefs are rational, justified, warranted, etc. Anscombe, for example, argues that "if a man has reasons, and they are good reasons, and they are genuinely his reasons, for thinking something—then his thought is rational, whatever causal statements we make about him" (Anscombe 1981: 229), on many widely accepted theories of knowledge and justification, questions of how beliefs were ultimately caused (e.g., at the level of brain neurochemistry) are viewed as irrelevant to whether those beliefs are rational or justified. Some defenders of Lewis claim that this objection misses the mark, because his argument is directed at what he calls the "veridicalness" of acts of reasoning (i.e., whether reasoning connects us with objective reality or truth), rather than with whether any inferred beliefs can be rational or justified in a materialistic world.

Lewis never claimed that he invented the argument from reason; in fact, he refers to it as a "venerable philosophical chestnut."[8] Early versions of the argument occur in the works of Arthur Balfour (see, e.g., The Foundations of Belief, 1879, chap. 13) and G.K. Chesterton; in Chesterton's 1908 book Orthodoxy, in a chapter titled "The Suicide of Thought", he writes of the "great and possible peril . . . that the human intellect is free to destroy itself....It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith, it is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?"[9]

Similarly, Chesterton asserts that the argument is a fundamental, if unstated, tenet of Thomism in his 1933 book St. Thomas Aquinas: "The Dumb Ox":

Thus, even those who appreciate the metaphysical depth of Thomism in other matters have expressed surprise that he does not deal at all with what many now think the main metaphysical question; whether we can prove that the primary act of recognition of any reality is real. The answer is that St. Thomas recognised instantly, what so many modern sceptics have begun to suspect rather laboriously; that a man must either answer that question in the affirmative, or else never answer any question, never ask any question, never even exist intellectually, to answer or to ask. I suppose it is true in a sense that a man can be a fundamental sceptic, but he cannot be anything else: certainly not even a defender of fundamental scepticism. If a man feels that all the movements of his own mind are meaningless, then his mind is meaningless, and he is meaningless; and it does not mean anything to attempt to discover his meaning. Most fundamental sceptics appear to survive, because they are not consistently sceptical and not at all fundamental, they will first deny everything and then admit something, if for the sake of argument--or often rather of attack without argument. I saw an almost startling example of this essential frivolity in a professor of final scepticism, in a paper the other day. A man wrote to say that he accepted nothing but Solipsism, and added that he had often wondered it was not a more common philosophy. Now Solipsism simply means that a man believes in his own existence, but not in anybody or anything else. And it never struck this simple sophist, that if his philosophy was true, there obviously were no other philosophers to profess it.[10]

In Miracles, Lewis himself quotes J. B. S. Haldane, who appeals to a similar line of reasoning in his 1927 book, Possible Worlds: "If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."[11]

1.
Supernatural
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One complicating factor is that there is disagreement about the definition of natural and the limits of naturalism. Concepts in the domain are closely related to concepts in religious spirituality. Sometimes we understand by nature the established course of things, as when we say that nature makes the night succeed the day, nature hath made respiration necessary to the life of men. Sometimes we take nature for the universe, or system of the works of God, as when it is said of a phoenix, or a chimera. And sometimes too, and that most commonly, we would express by nature a semi-deity or other kind of being. Parapsychologists use the term psi to refer to a unitary force underlying the phenomena they study. Views on the supernatural vary, for example it may be seen as, from this perspective, some events occur according to the laws of nature, and others occur according to a separate set of principles external to known nature. For example, in Scholasticism, it was believed that God was capable of performing any miracle so long as it didnt lead to a logical contradiction, others believe that all events have natural and only natural causes. They believe that human beings ascribe supernatural attributes to purely natural events, such as lightning, rainbows, floods, the supernatural is a feature of the philosophical traditions of Neoplatonism and Scholasticism. In contrast, the philosophy of Metaphysical naturalism argues for the conclusion that there are no supernatural entities, objects, most religions include elements of belief in the supernatural while also often featuring prominently in the study of the paranormal and occultism. Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. It is not possible, in process metaphysics, to conceive divine activity as an intervention into the “natural” order of events. Process theists usually regard the distinction between the supernatural and the natural as a by-product of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, in process thought, there is no such thing as a realm of the natural in contrast to that which is supernatural. On the other hand, if “the natural” is defined more neutrally as “what is in the nature of things, in Whiteheads words, “It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity”. It is tempting to emphasize process theisms denial of the supernatural, dreams as a Source of Supernatural Agent Concepts. Riekki T, Lindeman M, Raij T. T, Supernatural Believers Attribute More Intentions to Random Movement than Skeptics, An fMRI Study. CS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Purzycki Benjamin G, the Minds of Gods, A Comparative Study of Supernatural Agency. Unresolved Mourning, Supernatural Beliefs and Dissociation, A Mediation Analysis, vail K. E, Arndt J, Addollahi A

2.
C. S. Lewis
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Clive Staples Lewis was a British novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, broadcaster, lecturer, and Christian apologist. He held academic positions at both Oxford University and Cambridge University, Lewis and fellow novelist J. R. R. Tolkien were close friends. They both served on the English faculty at Oxford University, and were active in the informal Oxford literary group known as the Inklings, according to Lewiss memoir Surprised by Joy, he was baptised in the Church of Ireland, but fell away from his faith during adolescence. Lewis returned to Anglicanism at the age of 32, owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends and his faith profoundly affected his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim. In 1956, he married American writer Joy Davidman, she died of cancer four years later at the age of 45, Lewis died on 22 November 1963 from renal failure, one week before his 65th birthday. In 2013, on the 50th anniversary of his death, Lewis was honoured with a memorial in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey, Lewiss works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies. The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularised on stage, TV, radio and his works entered the public domain in 2014 in countries where copyright expires 50 years after the death of the creator, such as Canada. Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 29 November 1898 and his father was Albert James Lewis, a solicitor whose father Richard had come to Ireland from Wales during the mid-19th century. His mother was Florence Augusta Lewis, née Hamilton, known as Flora and he had an elder brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis. When he was four, his dog Jacksie was killed by a car, at first, he would answer to no other name, but later accepted Jack, the name by which he was known to friends and family for the rest of his life. When he was seven, his family moved into Little Lea, as a boy, Lewis was fascinated with anthropomorphic animals, he fell in love with Beatrix Potters stories and often wrote and illustrated his own animal stories. He and his brother Warnie created the world of Boxen, inhabited, Lewis loved to read, his fathers house was filled with books, and he felt that finding a book to read was as easy as walking into a field and finding a new blade of grass. Lewis was schooled by tutors before being sent to the Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire, in 1908. Lewiss brother had enrolled there three years previously, the school was closed not long afterwards due to a lack of pupils, the headmaster Robert Oldie Capron was soon after committed to a psychiatric hospital. Lewis then attended Campbell College in the east of Belfast about a mile from his home and he was then sent to the health-resort town of Malvern, Worcestershire, where he attended the preparatory school Cherbourg House, which Lewis calls Chartres in his autobiography. It was during this time that Lewis abandoned his childhood Christian faith and became an atheist, becoming interested in mythology, in September 1913, Lewis enrolled at Malvern College, where he remained until the following June. He found the school socially competitive, after leaving Malvern, he studied privately with William T. Kirkpatrick, his fathers old tutor and former headmaster of Lurgan College. As a teenager, Lewis was wonder-struck by the songs and legends of what he called Northernness and these legends intensified an inner longing he later called joy

3.
Miracles (book)
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Miracles is a book written by C. S. Lewis, originally published in 1947 and revised in 1960. In a chapter on The Naturalist and the Supernaturalist Lewis gives technical definitions to the two terms, supernaturalists believe that interruptions or interferences can take place in this system of our Universe from some other system outside it. A supernatural event would be one that is not traceable, even in principle, libertarian free will, if it exists, would have to be supernatural under this view. In a chapter on Natural Laws, Lewis addresses the issue of whether miracles are incompatible with law or science. He argues that rather than being exclusive, miracles are definite interventions that go beyond natural laws. Miracles are consistent with nature, but beyond natural law, all of the major miracles of the New Testament are addressed, with the incarnation playing the central role. Also included are two appendices which deal with matters of free will and the value of prayer, knowledge, however, is apprehended by reasoning from ground to consequent. Therefore, if naturalism were true, there would be no way of knowing it, in each case, to assume the veracity of the conclusion would eliminate the possibility of valid grounds from which to reach it. To summarize the argument in the book, Lewis quotes J. B. S. Haldane who appeals to a line of reasoning. Haldane states If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. The original version of Miracles contained a different version of chapter 3 entitled The Self-Contradiction of the Naturalist, in it, Lewis made the same argument but referred to atomic motions in the brain as irrational. In a Socratic Club debate, G. E. M, anscombe criticized this, prompting Lewis to revise the chapter. The revised chapter presents a more detailed elucidation of the argument, anscombe commented on the process after Lewiss death that the rewrite showed honesty and seriousness on the part of Lewis. John Beversluis C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion, grand Rapids, Michigan, William B. erdmans,1985. Victor Reppert C. S. Lewiss Dangerous Idea, downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press,2003. New York, New York, Barnes and Noble, Inc, quotations and Allusions in Miracles at Lewisiana. nl Miracles at Faded Page

4.
The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses
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The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses is a compilation of essays on Christianity by C. S. Lewis. It was published in its entirety in 1949, as a compilation of five essays in the U. S. by The MacMillan Company, transposition - Given in the Chapel of Mansfield College, Oxford, May 28,1944. Alban and St. Sergius, Oxford, February 10,1945 On Forgiveness - Written for Father Patrick Kevin Irwin and sent to him, first Published in Fern-seed and Elephants and Other Essays on Christianity by C. S. Lewis. A Slip of the Tongue - Given at the Chapel of Magdalene College, Cambridge and this was the last sermon preached by C. S. Lewis. The Weight of Glory available here

5.
G. E. M. Anscombe
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Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, FBA, usually cited as G. E. M. Anscombe or Elizabeth Anscombe, was a British analytic philosopher. She wrote on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, philosophical logic, philosophy of language and she was a prominent figure of analytical Thomism. Anscombe was a student of Ludwig Wittgenstein and became an authority on his work and edited and translated many books drawn from his writings, Anscombes 1958 article Modern Moral Philosophy introduced the term consequentialism into the language of analytic philosophy, and had a seminal influence on contemporary virtue ethics. Both her mother and father were involved with education and her mother was a headmistress and her father went on to head a department at Dulwich College. She graduated from Sydenham High School in 1937, and went on to read Mods & Greats at St Hughs College, Oxford, graduating with a second degree in 1939. During her first undergraduate year she converted to Roman Catholicism, and she garnered controversy when she publicly opposed Britains entry into World War II, although her father had been a soldier, and one of her brothers was to serve during the war. In 1941 she married Peter Geach, like her a Roman Catholic convert, a student of Wittgenstein, together they had three sons and four daughters. After graduating from Oxford, Anscombe was awarded a fellowship for postgraduate study at Newnham College, Cambridge. Her purpose was to attend Ludwig Wittgensteins lectures and her interest in Wittgensteins philosophy arose from reading the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus as an undergraduate. Difference of objects I express by difference of signs, as she wrote For years, I would spend time, in cafés, for example, staring at objects saying to myself, I see a packet. But what do I really see, how can I say that I see here anything more than a yellow expanse. I always hated phenomenalism and felt trapped by it. I couldnt see my way out of it but I didnt believe it and it was no good pointing to difficulties about it, things which Russell found wrong with it, for example. The strength, the nerve of it remained alive and raged achingly. It was only in Wittgensteins classes in 1944 that I saw the nerve being extracted, the central thought I have got this and she became one of Wittgensteins favourite students and one of his closest friends. Wittgenstein affectionately referred to her by the pet name old man – an exception to his dislike of academic women. Anscombe visited Wittgenstein many times after he left Cambridge in 1947 and she scandalised liberal colleagues with articles defending the Roman Catholic Churchs opposition to contraception in the 1960s and early 1970s. Later in life, she was arrested twice while protesting outside a clinic in Britain. Anscombe remained at Somerville College from 1946 to 1970 and she was also known for her willingness to face fierce public controversy in the name of her Catholic faith

6.
Alvin Plantinga
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Plantinga is widely known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics and Christian apologetics. He is the author of books including God and Other Minds, The Nature of Necessity. He has delivered the Gifford Lectures two times and was described by TIME magazine as Americas leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God, Plantinga is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Plantinga was born on November 15,1932, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Cornelius A. Plantinga, Plantingas father was a first-generation immigrant, born in the Netherlands. His family is from the Dutch province of Friesland, plantinga’s father earned a Ph. D. in philosophy from Duke University and a masters degree in psychology, and taught several academic subjects at different colleges over the years. One of Plantingas brothers, Cornelius Neal Plantinga, Jr. is a theologian, another of his brothers, Leon, is an emeritus professor of musicology at Yale University. His brother Terrell worked for CBS News, in 1955, Plantinga married Kathleen De Boer. Plantinga and his wife have four children, Carl, Jane, Harry, both of his sons are professors at Calvin College, Carl in Film Studies and Harry in computer science. Harry is also the director of the colleges Christian Classics Ethereal Library, at the end of 11th grade, Plantingas father urged Plantinga to skip his last year of high school and immediately enroll in college. Plantinga reluctantly followed his fathers advice and in 1949, a few months before his 17th birthday, he enrolled in Jamestown College, in Jamestown, during that same year, his father accepted a teaching job at Calvin College, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In January 1950, Plantinga moved to Grand Rapids with his family, during his first semester at Calvin, Plantinga was awarded a scholarship to attend Harvard University. Beginning in the fall of 1950, Plantinga spent two semesters at Harvard, in 1954, Plantinga began his graduate studies at the University of Michigan where he studied under William Alston, William Frankena, and Richard Cartwright, among others. A year later, in 1955, he transferred to Yale University where he received his Ph. D. in 1958, in 1963, he accepted a teaching job at Calvin College, where he replaced the retiring Jellema. He then spent the next 19 years at Calvin before moving to the University of Notre Dame in 1982 and he retired from the University of Notre Dame in 2010 and returned to Calvin College, where he serves as the first holder of the William Harry Jellema Chair in Philosophy. Plantinga served as president of the American Philosophical Association, Western Division, 1981–1982. and he has honorary degrees from Glasgow University, Calvin College, North Park College, the Free University of Amsterdam, Brigham Young University, and Valparaiso University. He was a Guggenheim Fellow, 1971–1972, and elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts, in 2006, the University of Notre Dames Center for Philosophy of Religion renamed its Distinguished Scholar Fellowship as the Alvin Plantinga Fellowship. The fellowship includes a lecture by the current Plantinga Fellow. Plantinga has argued that people can know that God exists as a basic belief

7.
C.E.M. Joad
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Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad was an English philosopher and broadcasting personality. He appeared on The Brains Trust, a BBC Radio wartime discussion programme and he popularised philosophy and became a celebrity, before his downfall in a scandal over an unpaid train fare in 1948. Joad was born in Durham, the son of Edwin. In 1892 his father became an Inspector of Schools and the moved to Southampton. Joad started school at the age of five in 1896, attending Oxford Preparatory School until 1906, in 1910 Joad went up to Balliol College, Oxford. Here he developed his skills as a philosopher and debater, by 1912 he was a first class sportsman and Oxford Union debater. He also became a Syndicalist, a Guild Socialist and then a Fabian, in 1913 he heard about George Bernard Shaw through the newly founded magazine, the New Statesman. This developed his study of philosophy, one of the blocks for his career as a teacher and broadcaster. Joad began at the Board of Trade in 1914 after attending a Fabian Summer School and his aim was to infuse the civil service with a socialist ethos. He worked in the Labour Exchanges Department of the Board of Trade, in the months leading up to the First World War he displayed ardent pacifism, which resulted in political controversy. Joad, along with Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell, became unpopular with many who were trying to encourage men to enlist as soldiers to fight for their country, in May 1915 Joad married Mary White, and they bought a home in Westhumble, near Dorking, in Surrey. The village, formerly home to Fanny Burney, was near to the founder of the Fabian Society, Joad was so fearful of conscription that he fled to Snowdonia, Wales, until it was safe to return. After the birth of three children, Joads marriage ended in separation in 1921, Joad later caused some controversy by stating his separation had caused him to abandon his feminism and instead adopt a belief in the inferior mind of women. After the separation Joad moved to Hampstead in London with a student teacher and she was the first of many mistresses, all of whom were introduced as Mrs Joad. He described sexual desire as a buzzing bluebottle that needed to be swatted promptly before it distracted a man of intellect from higher things and he believed that female minds lacked objectivity, and he had no interest in talking to women who would not go to bed with him. By now Joad was short and rotund, with bright eyes, round, rosy cheeks. He dressed in clothing as a test, if people sneered at this they were too petty to merit acquaintance. Job interviews proved a difficulty for Joad, due to his flippancy

8.
J. P. Moreland
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James Porter Moreland, better known as J. P. Moreland, is an American philosopher, theologian, and Christian apologist. He currently serves as a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in La Mirada, Moreland specializes in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, chemistry, and Christian Philosophy having had his work published in journals such as Metaphilosophy and the American Philosophical Quarterly. He has also had his work published by such as Intervarsity Press, NavPress, Zondervan, Oxford University Press, Routledge, Rutgers University Press. Moreland earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry with honors from the University of Missouri and he received his Th. M. in Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. In 1985, he received a Ph. D. in philosophy from the University of Southern California and his dissertation was Universals and the Qualities of Things, A defense of Realism. His dissertation advisor was eminent Christian professor Dallas Willard, Moreland is married to Hope and together they have two children and four grandchildren. Moreland teaches at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in La Mirada and he is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Center on Culture and Civil Society at the Independent Institute. He served for eight years as a bioethicist for PersonaCare Nursing Homes, Inc. in Baltimore and he has debated Clancy Martin over the existence of God. He has also debated atheist Eddie Tabash on whether the supernatural exists, Moreland is a substance dualist, and also defends libertarian free will, as well as life after death. Moreland has defended the existence of angels and demons, arguing that he knows they exist due to both Christian doctrine and personal experience and he is an old earth creationist who is a critic of fideism. Moreland Debates Does the Christian God Exist. on YouTube Closer to Truth Is There a Judgment

9.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker

10.
Theology
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Theology is the critical study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as a discipline, typically in universities, seminaries. Augustine of Hippo defined the Latin equivalent, theologia, as reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity, the term can, however, be used for a variety of different disciplines or fields of study. Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument to help understand, explain, test, critique, the English equivalent theology had evolved by 1362. Greek theologia was used with the discourse on god in the fourth century BC by Plato in The Republic, Book ii. Drawing on Greek Stoic sources, the Latin writer Varro distinguished three forms of discourse, mythical, rational and civil. Theologos, closely related to theologia, appears once in some manuscripts, in the heading to the book of Revelation, apokalypsis ioannoy toy theologoy. The Latin author Boethius, writing in the early 6th century, used theologia to denote a subdivision of philosophy as a subject of study, dealing with the motionless. Boethius definition influenced medieval Latin usage, Theology can also now be used in a derived sense to mean a system of theoretical principles, an ideology. They suggest the term is appropriate in religious contexts that are organized differently. Kalam. does not hold the place in Muslim thought that theology does in Christianity. To find an equivalent for theology in the Christian sense it is necessary to have recourse to several disciplines, and to the usul al-fiqh as much as to kalam. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, who argues that the use of theology is appropriate, can only do so, he says, I take theology not to be restricted to its etymological meaning. In that latter sense, Buddhism is of course atheological, rejecting as it does the notion of God, within Hindu philosophy, there is a solid and ancient tradition of philosophical speculation on the nature of the universe, of God and of the Atman. The Sanskrit word for the schools of Hindu philosophy is Darshana. Nevertheless, Jewish theology historically has been active and highly significant for Christian. It is sometimes claimed, however, that the Jewish analogue of Christian theological discussion would more properly be Rabbinical discussion of Jewish law, the history of the study of theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the history of such institutions themselves. Modern Western universities evolved from the institutions and cathedral schools of Western Europe during the High Middle Ages

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Conceptions of God
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The first recordings that survive of monotheistic conceptions of God, borne out of henotheism and monism, are from the Hellenistic period. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle discusses meaning of being as being, Aristotle holds that being primarily refers to the Unmoved Movers, and assigned one of these to each movement in the heavens. God, according to Aristotle, is in a state of stasis untouched by change, the unmoved mover is very unlike the conception of God that one sees in most religions. It has been likened to a person who is playing dominos and pushes one of them over, so every other domino in the set is pushed over as well. The All is the Hermetic version of God and it has also been called The One, The Great One, The Creator, The Supreme Mind, The Supreme Good, The Father and The Universal Mother. The All is seen by some to be a panentheistic conception of God, One Hermetic maxim states that While All is in THE ALL, it is equally true that THE ALL is in All. The All can also be seen to be hermaphroditic, possessing both masculine and feminine qualities in equal part and these qualities are, however, of mental gender, as The All lacks physical sex. According to The Kybalion, The All is more complicated than simply being the sum total of the universe. Rather than The All being simply the physical universe, it is said that everything in the universe is within the mind of The All, since The All can be looked at as Mind itself. The Alls mind is thought to be more powerful and vast than humans can possibly achieve. The Kybalion states that nothing can be outside of The All or The All would not be The All, the All may also be a metaphor alluding to the godhead potentiality of every individual. That invisible power which all know does exist, but understood by different names, such as God, Spirit, Supreme Being, Intelligence, Mind, Energy, Nature. In the Hermetic Tradition, each and every person has the potential to become God, the All is also an allusion to the observer created universe. We create our own reality, hence we are the architect, another way would to be to say that the mind is the builder. Freemasonry often includes concepts of God as an entity, however, esoteric masonic teachings clearly identify God as the individual himself. We are all God and as such we create our own reality, although others believe God to be abstract. Meaning he is not seen in reality, but understood through deep contemplation and he is all around us everyday, just hiding in the miracles and beauty of our Earth. Judaism, Christianity and Islam see God as a being who created the world, God is usually held to have the following properties, holiness, justice, sovereignty, omnipotence, omniscience, benevolence and omnipresence

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Theism
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Theism, in the field of comparative religion, or when contrasted with atheism, is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a deity or deities. The term theism derives from the Greek theos meaning god, the term theism was first used by Ralph Cudworth. Atheism is commonly understood as rejection of theism in the broadest sense of theism, the claim that the existence of any deity is unknown or unknowable is agnosticism. Monotheism is the belief in theology that only one deity exists, some modern day monotheistic religions include Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Bahai Faith, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Eckankar and some forms of Hinduism. Polytheism is the belief there is more than one god. In practice, polytheism is not just the belief that there are multiple gods, soft polytheism views the gods as being subsumed into a greater whole. Some other forms of Hinduism such as Smartism/Advaita Vedanta serve as examples of soft polytheism, polytheism is also divided according to how the individual deities are regarded, Henotheism, The viewpoint/belief that there may be more than one deity, but only one of them is worshiped. Kathenotheism, The viewpoint/belief that there is more than one deity, but only one deity is worshiped at a time or ever, if they are worshiped one at a time, then each is supreme in turn. Monolatrism, The belief that there may be more than one deity, most of the modern monotheistic religions may have begun as monolatric ones, although this is disputed. Pantheism, The belief that the universe is equivalent to god. Panentheism, Like Pantheism, the belief that the universe is joined to a god or gods. However, it believes that a god or gods are greater than the material universe. Examples include most forms of Vaishnavism and the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, some people find the distinction between these two beliefs as ambiguous and unhelpful, while others see it as a significant point of division. Pantheism may be understood a type of Nontheism, where the universe takes on some of the roles of a theistic God. Classical deism is the belief that at least one deity exists and created the world, Deism typically rejects supernatural events prominent in organized religion. Instead, Deism holds that religious beliefs must be founded on reason and observed features of the natural world. Pandeism, The belief that a god preceded the universe and created it, panendeism combines deism with panentheism, believing the universe is a part of, but not all of a god. Polydeism, The belief that gods exist, but do not intervene in the universe

13.
Deism
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Deism is a philosophical position which posits that a god does not interfere directly with the world. Deism gained prominence among intellectuals during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in Britain, France, Germany, included in those influenced by its ideas were leaders of the American and French Revolutions. These lead to many subdivisions of modern deism which tends, therefore, Deism is a theological theory concerning the relationship between the Creator and the natural world. Deistic viewpoints emerged during the revolution of 17th Century Europe. Deism stood between the narrow dogmatism of the period and skepticism, though deists rejected atheism, they often were called atheists by more traditional theists. There were a number of different forms in the 17th and 18th Centuries, in England, deism included a range of people from anti-Christian to non-Christian theists. See the section Features of deism, following, Deism is related to naturalism because it credits the formation of life and the universe to a higher power, using only natural processes. Deism may also include an element, involving experiences of God. The words deism and theism are both derived from words for god, the former from Latin deus, the latter from Greek theós, prior to the 17th Century the terms were used interchangeably with the terms theism and theist, respectively. Theologians and philosophers of the 17th Century began to give a different signification to the words, both asserted belief in one supreme God, the Creator. Perhaps the first use of the term deist is in Pierre Virets Instruction Chrétienne en la doctrine de la foi et de lÉvangile, Viret, a Calvinist, regarded deism as a new form of Italian heresy. I have heard there are of this band those who call themselves Deists, an entirely new word. In England, the term deist first appeared in Robert Burtons The Anatomy of Melancholy, Lord Herbert of Cherbury is generally considered the father of English Deism, and his book De Veritate the first major statement of deism. Deism flourished in England between 1690 and 1740, at which time Matthew Tindals Christianity as Old as the Creation, also called The Deists Bible, later deism spread to France, notably through the work of Voltaire, to Germany, and to the United States. The concept of deism covers a variety of positions on a wide variety of religious issues. Sir Leslie Stephens English Thought in the Eighteenth Century describes the core of deism as consisting of critical and constructional elements, critical elements of deist thought included, Rejection of religions that are based on books that claim to contain the revealed word of God. Rejection of religious dogma and demagogy, Skepticism of reports of miracles, prophecies and religious mysteries. Constructional elements of deist thought included, God exists and created the universe, God gave humans the ability to reason

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Henotheism
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Henotheism is the worship of a single god while not denying the existence or possible existence of other deities. Friedrich Schelling coined the word, and Friedrich Welcker used it to depict primordial monotheism among ancient Greeks, Friedrich Schelling coined the term henotheism, from heis which literally means single, one. The term refers to a form of theism focused on a single god, related terms are monolatrism and kathenotheism. The latter term is an extension of henotheism, from καθ ἕνα θεόν — one god at a time, Henotheism refers to a pluralistic theology wherein different deities are viewed to be of a unitary, equivalent divine essence. Another term related to henotheism is equitheism, referring to the belief that all gods are equal, further, the term henotheism does not exclude monism, nondualism or dualism. Various scholars prefer the term monolatry to henotheism, to discuss religions where a god is central. According to Christoph Elsas, henotheism in modern usage connotes a syncretic stage in the development of religions in late antiquity. A henotheist may worship a god from a pantheon of deities at a given time, depending on his or her choice, while accepting other deities. Henotheism and inclusive monotheism are terms that refer to a position between unlimited polytheism and exclusive monotheism. Ahura Mazda is the god, but Zoroastrianism does not deny other deities. Ahura Mazda has yazatas some of which include Anahita, Sraosha, Mithra, Rashnu, Richard Foltz has put forth evidence that Iranians of Pre-Islamic era worshiped all these figures, especially Mithra and Anahita. Prods Oktor Skjærvø states Zoroastrianism is henotheistic, and a dualistic and polytheistic religion, but with one supreme god, who is the father of the ordered cosmos. Other scholars state that this is unclear, because historic texts present a picture, ranging from Zoroastrianisms belief in one god. Henotheism was the used by scholars such as Max Muller to describe the theology of Vedic religion. The Vedic era conceptualization of the divine or the One, states Jeaneane Fowler, is more abstract than a monotheistic God, it is the Reality behind and of the phenomenal universe. The Vedic hymns treat it as limitless, indescribable, absolute principle, an example of the questioning of the concept of God, in addition to henotheistic hymns found therein, are in later portions of the Rigveda, such as the Nasadiya Sukta. Hinduism calls the metaphysical absolute concept as Brahman, incorporating within it the transcendent and immanent reality, different schools of thought interpret Brahman as either personal, impersonal or transpersonal. Ishwar Chandra Sharma describes it as Absolute Reality, beyond all dualities of existence and non-existence, light and darkness, while Greek and Roman religion began as polytheism, during the Classical period, under the influence of philosophy, differing conceptions emerged

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Hermeticism
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Hermeticism, also called Hermetism, is a religious, philosophical, and esoteric tradition based primarily upon writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. These writings have influenced the Western esoteric tradition and were considered to be of great importance during both the Renaissance and the Reformation. The tradition claims descent from a prisca theologia, a doctrine that affirms the existence of a single, true theology that is present in all religions, st. Thomas Aquinas reported that Trismegistus arrived at something akin to the doctrine of the Trinity. The three parts of the wisdom are alchemy, astrology, and theurgy, the Poimandres, from which Marsilio Ficino formed his opinion, states that They called him Trismegistus because he was the greatest philosopher and the greatest priest and the greatest king. The Suda states that He was called Trismegistus on account of his praise of the trinity, much of the importance of Hermeticism arises from its connection with the development of science during the time from 1300 to 1600 AD. Consequently, it was the practical aspects of Hermetic writings that attracted the attention of scientists, Isaac Newton placed great faith in the concept of an unadulterated, pure, ancient doctrine, which he studied vigorously to aid his understanding of the physical world. The term Hermetic is from the medieval Latin hermeticus, which is derived from the name of the Greek god, in English, it has been attested since the 17th century, as in Hermetic writers. The word Hermetic was used by Dr. Everard in his English translation of The Pimander of Hermes, Mary Anne Atwood mentioned the use of the word Hermetic by Dufresnoy in 1386. The synonymous term Hermetical is also attested in the 17th century, sir Thomas Browne in his Religio Medici of 1643 wrote, Now besides these particular and divided Spirits, there may be a universal and common Spirit to the whole world. It was the opinion of Plato, and is yet of the Hermeticall Philosophers, Hermes Trimegistus supposedly invented the process of making a glass tube airtight using a secret seal. Hence, the term completely sealed is implied in hermetically sealed, in Late Antiquity, Hermetism emerged in parallel with early Christianity, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, the Chaldaean Oracles, and late Orphic and Pythagorean literature. These doctrines were characterized by a resistance to the dominance of either rationality or doctrinal faith. The books now known as the Corpus Hermeticum were part of a renaissance of syncretistic and these post-Christian Greek texts dwell upon the oneness and goodness of God, urge purification of the soul, and defend pagan religious practices such as the veneration of images. Their predominant literary form is the dialogue, Hermes Trismegistus instructs a perplexed disciple upon various teachings of the hidden wisdom, many lost Greek texts and many surviving vulgate books contained discussions of alchemy clothed in philosophical metaphor. One of these, known as The Asclepius, contained a prophecy of the end of Roman rule in Egypt. Plutarchs mention of Hermes Trismegistus dates back to the 1st century AD, and Tertullian, Iamblichus, after centuries of falling out of favor, Hermeticism was reintroduced to the West when, in 1460, a man named Leonardo de Candia Pistoia brought the Corpus Hermeticum to Pistoia. He was one of agents sent out by Pistoias ruler, Cosimo de Medici. In 1614, Isaac Casaubon, a Swiss philologist, analyzed the Greek Hermetic texts for linguistic style and he concluded that the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus were not the work of an ancient Egyptian priest but in fact dated to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD

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Monotheism
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Monotheism has been defined as the belief in the existence of only one god that created the world, is all-powerful and interferes in the world. Another, more broad definition of monotheism, is the belief in one god, a distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, and both inclusive monotheism and pluriform monotheism which, while recognising various distinct gods, postulate some underlying unity. There are also monotheistic parody religions, such as Pastafarianism, the word monotheism comes from the Greek μόνος meaning single and θεός meaning god. The English term was first used by Henry More, according to Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition, monotheism was the original religion of humanity. Scholars of religion largely abandoned that view in the 19th century in favour of a progression from animism via polytheism to monotheism. Austrian anthropologist Wilhelm Schmidt had postulated an Urmonotheismus, original or primitive monotheism in the 1910s and it was objected that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam had grown up in opposition to polytheism as had Greek philosophical monotheism. Some writers believe that the concept of monotheism sees a gradual development out of notions of henotheism and monolatrism, quasi-monotheistic claims of the existence of a universal deity date to the Late Bronze Age, with Akhenatens Great Hymn to the Aten. A possible inclination towards monotheism emerged during the Vedic period in Iron-Age South Asia, the Rigveda exhibits notions of monism of the Brahman, in particular, in the comparatively late tenth book, dated to the early Iron Age, e. g. in the Nasadiya sukta. While all adherents of the Abrahamic religions consider themselves to be monotheists, Judaism does not consider Christianity to be monotheistic, Judaism is one of the oldest monotheistic religions in the world. God in Judaism is strictly monotheistic, a one, indivisible. The Babylonian Talmud references other, foreign gods as non-existent entities to whom humans mistakenly ascribe reality, One of the best-known statements of Rabbinical Judaism on monotheism is the Second of Maimonides 13 Principles of faith, God, the Cause of all, is one. This does not mean one as in one of a pair, nor one like a species, nor one as in an object that is made up of many elements, rather, God is a unity unlike any other possible unity. Judaism and Islam reject the Christian idea of monotheism, Judaism uses the term shituf to refer to the worship of God in a manner which Judaism does not deem to be monotheistic. During the 8th century BCE, the worship of YHWH in Israel was in competition with other cults. Some scholars hypothesize that Judaism was originally a form of monolatrism or henotheism, in this hypothesis both the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah had YHWH as their state god, while also acknowledging the existence of other gods. Shema Yisrael are the first two words of a section of the Torah, and is the title of a prayer that serves as a centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services. Observant Jews consider the Shema to be the most important part of the service in Judaism. It is traditional for Jews to say the Shema as their last words, despite at least one earlier local synod rejecting the claim of Arius, this Christological issue was to be one of the items addressed at the First Council of Nicaea

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Mysticism
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Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ultimate or hidden truths, the term mysticism has Ancient Greek origins with various historically determined meanings. Derived from the Greek word μυω, meaning to conceal, mysticism referred to the liturgical, spiritual. During the early period, the definition of mysticism grew to include a broad range of beliefs. In modern times, mysticism has acquired a limited definition, with applications, as meaning the aim at the union with the Absolute. This limited definition has been applied to a range of religious traditions and practices. Since the 1960s scholars have debated the merits of perennial and constructionist approaches in the research of mystical experiences. The perennial position is now largely dismissed by scholars, most scholars using a contextual approach, Mysticism is derived from the Greek μυω, meaning I conceal, and its derivative μυστικός, mystikos, meaning an initiate. The verb μυώ has received a different meaning in the Greek language. The primary meanings it has are induct and initiate, secondary meanings include introduce, make someone aware of something, train, familiarize, give first experience of something. The related form of the verb appears in the New Testament. As explained in Strongs Concordance, it properly means shutting the eyes and its figurative meaning is to be initiated into the mystery revelation. The meaning derives from the rites of the pagan mysteries. Also appearing in the New Testament is the related noun μυστήριον, the term means anything hidden, a mystery or secret, of which initiation is necessary. According to Thayers Greek Lexicon, the term μυστήριον in classical Greek meant a hidden thing, a particular meaning it took in Classical antiquity was a religious secret or religious secrets, confided only to the initiated and not to be communicated by them to ordinary mortals. In the Septuagint and the New Testament the meaning it took was that of a purpose or counsel. It is sometimes used for the hidden wills of humans, but is often used for the hidden will of God. Elsewhere in the Bible it takes the meaning of the mystic or hidden sense of things and it is used for the secrets behind sayings, names, or behind images seen in visions and dreams

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Pandeism
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Pandeism is a theological doctrine which combines aspects of pantheism with aspects of deism. It holds that the deity became the universe and ceased to exist as a separate. Pandeism is proposed to explain, as it relates to deism, why God would create a universe and then abandon it, and as to pantheism, the origin and purpose of the universe. The word pandeism is a blend of the root words pantheism and deism, combining Ancient Greek, πᾶν pan all with Latin. It was perhaps first coined in the present meaning in 1859 by Moritz Lazarus, Pandeism falls within the traditional hierarchy of monistic and nontheistic philosophies addressing the nature of God. For the history of the words, pantheism and deism, see the overview of deism section. Weinstein noted the distinction between pantheism and pandeism, stating even if only by a letter, we fundamentally differ Pandeism from Pantheism and it has also been suggested that many religions may classify themselves as pantheistic but fit more essentially under the description of panentheistic or pandeistic. The earliest seeds of pandeism coincide with notions of monotheism, which generally can be traced back to the Atenism of Akhenaten, Weinstein in particular identified the idea of primary matter derived from an original spirit as found by the ancient Egyptians to be a form of pandeism. Weinstein similarly found varieties of pandeism in the views held in China, India, especially in the Hindu Bhagavad Gita. He similarly found that ideas of pandeism were reflected in the ideas of Heraclitus, religious studies professor, F. E. Peters, however, found with respect to the Pythagoreans and the Milesians that hat appeared. At the center of the Pythagorean tradition in philosophy, is another view of psyche that seems to owe little or nothing to the pan-vitalism or pan-deism that is the legacy of the Milesians. Gottfried Große in his 1787 interpretation of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, describes Pliny, a contemporary statement of this idea is that, Since God is not a being, he is therefore not intelligible. This means not only that we understand him, but also that he cannot understand himself. Creation is a kind of effort by God to understand himself. Of Nicholas of Cusa, who wrote of the enfolding of creation in God and the unfolding of the human mind in creation, Weinstein wrote that he was, to a certain extent. This was reiterated by others including Discover editor Corey S. Powell, in the 1820s to 1830s, pandeism received some mention in Italy. Nannetti further specifically criticized pandeism, declaring, To you, fatal Pandeist, the laws that create nature are contingent and mutable, not another being in substance with forces driven by motions and developments. Neither Nannetti nor the 1838 author defines pandeism distinctly enough to distinguish it from pantheism

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Pantheism
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Pantheism is the belief that all reality is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal or anthropomorphic god. The term pantheism was not coined until after Spinozas death, and his work, Ethics, was the major source from which Western pantheism spread. Pantheistic concepts may date back thousands of years, and some religions in the East continue to contain pantheistic elements, Pantheism derives from the Greek πᾶν pan and θεός theos. There are a variety of definitions of pantheism, some consider it a theological and philosophical position concerning God. As a religious position, some describe pantheism as the polar opposite of atheism, from this standpoint, pantheism is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing, immanent God. All forms of reality may then be considered either modes of that Being, some hold that pantheism is a non-religious philosophical position. To them, pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical, pantheistic tendencies existed in a number of early Gnostic groups, with pantheistic thought appearing throughout the Middle Ages. These included a section of Johannes Scotus Eriugenas 9th-century work De divisione naturae, the Roman Catholic Church has long regarded pantheistic ideas as heresy. Giordano Bruno, an Italian monk who evangelized about an immanent and he has since become known as a celebrated pantheist and martyr of science. Bruno influenced many later thinkers including Baruch Spinoza, in the West, pantheism was formalized as a separate theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi Portuguese origin, whose book Ethics was an answer to Descartes famous dualist theory that the body, Spinoza held the monist view that the two are the same, and monism is a fundamental part of his philosophy. He was described as a God-intoxicated man, and used the word God to describe the unity of all substance, although the term pantheism was not coined until after his death, Spinoza is regarded as its most celebrated advocate. His work, Ethics, was the source from which Western pantheism spread. The breadth and importance of Spinozas work was not fully realized until years after his death. Spinozas magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, in which he opposed Descartes mind–body dualism, has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophys most important thinkers, Hegel said, You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all. His philosophical accomplishments and moral character prompted 20th-century philosopher Gilles Deleuze to name him the prince of philosophers, Spinoza was raised in the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish religious authorities issued a cherem against him, effectively excluding him from Jewish society at age 23

20.
Polytheism
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Polytheism is the worship of or belief in multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religions and rituals. Polytheism is a type of theism, within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, the belief in a singular God, in most cases transcendent. Polytheists do not always worship all the gods equally, but they can be henotheists, other polytheists can be kathenotheists, worshiping different deities at different times. Polytheism was the form of religion during the Bronze Age and Iron Age up to the Axial Age and the development of Abrahamic religions. Important polytheistic religions practiced today include Chinese traditional religion, Hinduism, Japanese Shinto, the term comes from the Greek πολύ poly and θεός theos and was first invented by the Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria to argue with the Greeks. When Christianity spread throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, non-Christians were just called Gentiles or pagans or by the pejorative term idolaters. The modern usage of the term is first revived in French through Jean Bodin in 1580, a central, main division in polytheism is between soft polytheism and hard polytheism. Hard polytheism is the belief that gods are distinct, separate, real divine beings, hard polytheists reject the idea that all gods are one god. Hard polytheists do not necessarily consider the gods of all cultures as being equally real, Polytheism cannot be cleanly separated from the animist beliefs prevalent in most folk religions. The gods of polytheism are in cases the highest order of a continuum of supernatural beings or spirits. In some cases these spirits are divided into celestial or chthonic classes, since divinity is intellectual, and all intellect returns into itself, this myth expresses in allegory the essence of divinity. Myths may be regarded physically when they express the activities of gods in the world, the psychological way is to regard the activities of the soul itself and or the souls acts of thought. The material is to regard material objects to actually be gods, for example, to call the earth Gaia, ocean Okeanos, Some well-known historical polytheistic pantheons include the Sumerian gods and the Egyptian gods, and the classical-attested pantheon which includes the ancient Greek religion and Roman religion. Post-classical polytheistic religions include Norse Æsir and Vanir, the Yoruba Orisha, the Aztec gods, an example of a religious notion from this shared past is the concept of *dyēus, which is attested in several distinct religious systems. In many civilizations, pantheons tended to grow over time, deities first worshipped as the patrons of cities or places came to be collected together as empires extended over larger territories. Conquests could lead to the subordination of the elder cultures pantheon to a one, as in the Greek Titanomachia. Most ancient belief systems held that gods influenced human lives, epicurus believed that these gods were material, human-like, and that they inhabited the empty spaces between worlds. Though it is suggested that Hestia stepped down when Dionysus was invited to Mount Olympus, robert Graves The Greek Myths cites two sources that obviously do not suggest Hestia surrendered her seat, though he suggests she did

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Spiritualism
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Spiritualism is the belief that the spirits of the dead have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living. The afterlife, or the world, is seen by spiritualists, not as a static place. Some spiritualists will speak of a concept which they refer to as spirit guides—specific spirits, often contacted, Spiritism, a branch of spiritualism developed by Allan Kardec and today practiced mostly in Continental Europe and Latin America, especially in Brazil, emphasizes reincarnation. Spiritualism developed and reached its peak growth in membership from the 1840s to the 1920s, by 1897, spiritualism was said to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe, mostly drawn from the middle and upper classes. Many prominent spiritualists were women, and like most spiritualists, supported such as the abolition of slavery. By the late 1880s the credibility of the movement had weakened due to accusations of fraud perpetrated by mediums. Spiritualism is currently practiced primarily through various denominational spiritualist churches in the United States, Canada and they believe that spirit mediums are gifted to carry on such communication, but that anyone may become a medium through study and practice. They believe that spirits are capable of growth and perfection, progressing through higher spheres or planes, and that the afterlife is not a static state, many believers therefore speak of spirit guides—specific spirits, often contacted, and relied upon for worldly and spiritual guidance. According to spiritualists, anyone may receive messages, but formal communication sessions are held by mediums. Nevertheless, on significant points Christian Protestantism and spiritualism are different and this view is self-evidently incompatible with spiritualism, where the merely spiritual existence is superior to the embodied one. There are quite a number of spiritualist churches which are explicitly Christian in theology, forms of worship and praise, judaism It is held by some adherents of the Jewish religion that spiritualism is strictly forbidden by the Bible. Islam Within Islam, only rarely do some traditions - notably Sufism, despite this, the majority of the followers of Islam believe in the existence of spirits as a fundamental aspect of their religion. However, these spirits are not those of humans but of a third sapient creation said to be made by God called the jinn. Jinn are spirits made from fire, in a realm not visible to the eyes of people. A famous jinn in the Muslim tradition is Satan, as opposed to the Christian belief that he is a fallen angel, communication with these spirits, whether the spirit is good or evil in nature, is generally not encouraged in Islam. Additionally, the concept of Tawassul recognises the existence of spirits on a higher plane of existence closer to God. Spiritism Spiritism, the branch of spiritualism developed by Allan Kardec, Occultism Spiritualism also differs from occult movements, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or the contemporary wiccan covens, in that spirits are not contacted to obtain magical powers. Eliphas Lévi, who is regarded as the founder of occultism, strongly rejected Spiritism, later on, Madame Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society, only practiced mediumship to contact powerful spirits capable of conferring esoteric knowledge

22.
Deity
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A deity is a concept conceived in diverse ways in various cultures, typically as a natural or supernatural being considered divine or sacred. A male deity is a god, while a female deity is a goddess, the Oxford reference defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. Various cultures have conceptualized a deity differently than a monotheistic God, a plain deity need not be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, or eternal, however an almighty monotheistic God generally does have these attributes. Monotheistic religions typically refer to God in masculine terms, while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways – masculine, feminine, androgynous, some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts. In Indian religions, deities have been envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living beings body, as sensory organs, but in Indian religions, all deities are also subject to death when their merit runs out. The English language word deity derives from Old French deité, the Latin deitatem or divine nature, deus is related through a common Proto-Indo-European language origin to *deiwos. Deva is masculine, and the feminine equivalent is devi. Etymologically, the cognates of Devi are Latin dea and Greek thea, in Old Persian, daiva- means demon, evil god, while in Sanskrit it means the opposite, referring to the heavenly, divine, terrestrial things of high excellence, exalted, shining ones. The closely linked term god refers to supreme being, deity, which states Douglas Harper, is derived from Proto-Germanic *guthan, from PIE *ghut-, guth in the Irish language means voice. The term *ghut- is also the source of Old Church Slavonic zovo, Sanskrit huta-, from the root *gheu- An alternate etymology for the term god traces it to the PIE root *ghu-to-, the term *gheu- is also the source of the Greek khein to pour. Originally the German root was a noun, but the gender of the monotheistic God shifted to masculine under the influence of Christianity. In contrast, all ancient Indo-European cultures and mythologies recognized both masculine and feminine deities, the term deity often connotes the concept of sacred or divine, as a god or goddess, in a polytheistic religion. However, there is no accepted consensus concept of deity across religions and cultures. Huw Owen states that the deity or god or its equivalent in other languages has a bewildering range of meanings. Some engravings or sketches show animals, hunters or rituals, the Venus of Willendorf, a female figurine found in Europe and dated to about 25,000 BCE has been interpreted as an exemplar of a prehistoric divine feminine. In Buddhist mythology, devas are beings inhabiting certain happily placed worlds of Buddhist cosmology and these beings are mortal and numerous. It is also common for iṣṭadevatās to be called deities, although the nature of Yidams is distinct from what is meant by the term. Buddhism does not believe in a creator deity, however, deities are an essential part of Buddhist cosmology, rebirth and Saṃsāra doctrines

23.
Divinity
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Such things are regarded as divine due to their transcendental origins or because their attributes or qualities are superior or supreme relative to things of the Earth. Divine things are regarded as eternal and based in truth, while things are regarded as ephemeral. Such things that may qualify as divine are apparitions, visions, prophecies, miracles, and in some also the soul, or more general things like resurrection, immortality, grace. Otherwise what is or is not divine may be loosely defined, the root of the word divine is literally godly, but the use varies significantly depending on which deity is being discussed. This article outlines the major distinctions in the use of the terms. For specific related academic terms, see Divinity, or Divine, for instance, Jehovah is closely associated with storms and thunder throughout much of the Old Testament. He is said to speak in thunder, and thunder is seen as a token of his anger and this power was then extended to prophets like Moses and Samuel, who caused thunderous storms to rain down on their enemies. Divinity always carries connotations of goodness, beauty, beneficence, justice, pantheistic and polytheistic faiths make no such distinction, gods and other beings of transcendent power often have complex, ignoble, or even irrational motivations for their acts. Note that while the demon and demonic are used in monotheistic faiths as antonyms to divine, they are in fact derived from the Greek word daimón. There are three distinct usages of divinity and divine in religious discourse, In monotheistic faiths, the divinity is often used to refer to the singular God central to that faith. Often the word takes the article and is capitalized — the Divinity — as though it were a proper name or definitive honorific. Divine — capitalized — may be used as an adjective to refer to the manifestations of such a Divinity or its powers and this leads to the second usage of the word divine, to refer to the operation of transcendent power in the world. In its most direct form, the operation of transcendent power implies some form of divine intervention, for pan- and polytheistic faiths this usually implies the direct action of one god or another on the course of human events. In monotheistic religions, divine intervention may take very direct forms, miracles, visions, transcendent force or power may also operate through more subtle and indirect paths. Monotheistic faiths generally support some version of divine providence, which acknowledges that the divinity of the faith has a profound but unknowable plan always unfolding in the world. Unforeseeable, overwhelming, or seemingly unjust events are often thrown on the will of the Divine, in deferences like the Muslim inshallah, in the third usage, extensions of divinity and divine power are credited to living, mortal individuals. More commonly, and more pertinent to recent history, leaders merely claim some form of divine mandate, in Greek mythology, Achilles mother bathed him in the river Styx to give him immortality, and Hercules — as the son of Zeus — inherited near-godly powers. In religious Taoism, Lao Tsu is venerated as a saint with his own powers, various individuals in the Buddhist faith, beginning with Siddhartha, are considered to be enlightened, and in religious forms of Buddhism they are credited with divine powers

24.
Goddess
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A goddess is a female deity in polytheistic religions. Goddesses most often have characteristics that are apotheosize in their pure form. However, in some cases goddesses may embody neutral forms personifying both male and female characteristics, or they may even exhibit traits that are associated with the male gender. In some faiths, a female figure holds a central place in religious prayer. For example, Shaktism, the worship of the force that animates the world, is one of the three major sects of Hinduism. Polytheist religions, including Polytheistic reconstructionists, honour multiple goddesses and gods and these deities may be part of a pantheon, or different regions may have tutelary deities. The reconstructionists, like their ancient forebears, honour the deities particular to their country of origin, the noun goddess is a secondary formation, combining the Germanic god with the Latinate -ess suffix. It first appeared in Middle English, from about 1350, the English word follows the linguistic precedent of a number of languages—including Egyptian, Classical Greek, and several Semitic languages—that add a feminine ending to the languages word for god. Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth, a 1988 interview with Bill Moyers, links the image of the Earth or Mother Goddess to symbols of fertility and reproduction. For example, Campbell states that, There have been systems of religion where the mother is the prime parent, and in Egypt you have the Mother Heavens, the Goddess Nut, who is represented as the whole heavenly sphere. Joseph Campbell, Well that was associated primarily with agriculture and the agricultural societies and it has to do with the earth. The human woman gives birth just as the earth gives birth to the plants. so woman magic, and the personification of the energy that gives birth to forms and nourishes forms is properly female. It is in the world of ancient Mesopotamia, the Egyptian Nile. Campbell also argues that the image of the Virgin Mary was derived from the image of Isis and her child Horus, other Mesopotamian goddesses include Ninhursag, Ninlil, Antu, Gaga Goddesses of the Canaanite religion, Baalat Gebal, Astarte, Anat. Cybele, Her Hittite name was Kubaba, but her name changed to Cybele in Phrygian and Roman culture and her effect can be also seen on Artemis as the Lady of Ephesus. Hebat, Mother Goddess of the Hittite pantheon and wife of the sky god. She was the origin of the Hurrian cult, arinniti, Hittite Goddess of the sun. She became patron of the Hittite Empire and monarchy, leto, A mother Goddess figure in Lykia

25.
Numen
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Numen, pl. numina, is a Latin term for divinity, or a divine presence, divine will. The Latin authors defined it as follows, cicero writes of a divine mind, a god whose numen everything obeys, and a divine power which pervades the lives of men. It causes the motions and cries of birds during augury, in Virgils recounting of the blinding of the one-eyed giant, Polyphemus, from the Odyssey, in his Aeneid, he has Odysseus and his men first ask for the assistance of the great numina. Pliny the younger in a letter to Paternus raves about the power, the dignity, and the majesty, in short, the numen of history. Lucretius uses the expression numen mentis, or bidding of the mind, where bidding is numen, not, however, the numen, unless the mind is to be considered divine. Since the early 20th century, numen has sometimes been treated in the history of religion as a phase, that is. Numen is also used by sociologists to refer to the idea of magical power residing in an object, when used in this sense, numen is nearly synonymous with mana. However, some authors use of mana for ideas about magic from Polynesia. It came to mean the product or expression of power — not, be it noted, thus, numen is not personified and should be distinguished from deus. The cult of Augustus was promoted by Tiberius, who dedicated the Ara Numinis Augusti, in this context, a distinction can be made between the terms numen and genius. The expression Numen inest appears in Ovids Fasti and has been translated as There is a spirit here and its interpretation, and in particular the exact sense of numen has been discussed extensively in the literature. The phrase numen eris caeloque redux mirabere regna appears on line 129 of the poem Metrum in Genesin, nil sine numine is the state motto of Colorado. Its origin could be the phrase. non haec sine numine divum eveniunt from Virgils Aeneid, Numen lumen is the motto of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Elon University. The term numen appears three times in James Joyces Finnegans Wake, animism Lares Penates Sacred Fishwick, Duncan. The Imperial Cult in the Latin West, the Idea of the Holy, An Inquiry Into the Non Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine 1926

26.
God
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In monotheism, God is conceived of as the Supreme Being and principal object of faith. The concept of God as described by most theologians includes the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, divine simplicity, many theologians also describe God as being omnibenevolent and all loving. Furthermore, some religions attribute only a purely grammatical gender to God, incorporeity and corporeity of God are related to conceptions of transcendence and immanence of God, with positions of synthesis such as the immanent transcendence of Chinese theology. God has been conceived as personal or impersonal. In theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, while in deism, God is the creator, in pantheism, God is the universe itself. In atheism, God is not believed to exist, while God is deemed unknown or unknowable within the context of agnosticism, God has also been conceived as the source of all moral obligation, and the greatest conceivable existent. Many notable philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God, there are many names for God, and different names are attached to different cultural ideas about Gods identity and attributes. In the ancient Egyptian era of Atenism, possibly the earliest recorded monotheistic religion, this deity was called Aten, premised on being the one true Supreme Being and creator of the universe. In the Hebrew Bible and Judaism, He Who Is, I Am that I Am, in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, God, consubstantial in three persons, is called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Judaism, it is common to refer to God by the titular names Elohim or Adonai, in Islam, the name Allah is used, while Muslims also have a multitude of titular names for God. In Hinduism, Brahman is often considered a concept of God. In Chinese religion, God is conceived as the progenitor of the universe, intrinsic to it, other religions have names for God, for instance, Baha in the Baháí Faith, Waheguru in Sikhism, and Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism. The earliest written form of the Germanic word God comes from the 6th-century Christian Codex Argenteus, the English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic * ǥuđan. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form * ǵhu-tó-m was likely based on the root * ǵhau-, in the English language, the capitalized form of God continues to represent a distinction between monotheistic God and gods in polytheism. The same holds for Hebrew El, but in Judaism, God is also given a proper name, in many translations of the Bible, when the word LORD is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton. Allāh is the Arabic term with no plural used by Muslims and Arabic speaking Christians and Jews meaning The God, Ahura Mazda is the name for God used in Zoroastrianism. Mazda, or rather the Avestan stem-form Mazdā-, nominative Mazdå and it is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit, and like its Sanskrit cognate medhā, means intelligence or wisdom. Both the Avestan and Sanskrit words reflect Proto-Indo-Iranian *mazdhā-, from Proto-Indo-European mn̩sdʰeh1, literally meaning placing ones mind, Waheguru is a term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God

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God in Abrahamic religions
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Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are sometimes called Abrahamic religions because they all accept the tradition that God revealed himself to the prophet Abraham. The Abrahamic God in this sense is the conception of God that remains a common attribute of all three traditions, God is conceived of as eternal, omnipotent, omniscient and as the creator of the universe. God is further held to have the properties of holiness, justice, omni-benevolence and omnipresence, the Baháí writings describe a monotheistic, personal, inaccessible, omniscient, omnipresent, imperishable, and almighty God who is the creator of all things in the universe. The existence of God and the universe is thought to be eternal, though transcendent and inaccessible directly, God is nevertheless seen as conscious of creation, with a will and purpose that is expressed through messengers termed Manifestations of God. The purpose of creation is for the created to have the capacity to know and love its creator, through such methods as prayer, reflection, and being of service to humankind. The Manifestations of God reflect divine attributes, which are creations of God made for the purpose of spiritual enlightenment, in the Baháí view, all physical beings reflect at least one of these attributes, and the human soul can potentially reflect all of them. The Baháí view rejects all pantheistic, anthropomorphic, and incarnationist beliefs in God, Most Christian denominations believe Jesus to be the incarnation of God as a human being, which is the main theological divergence with respect to Judaism and Islam. For most Christians, beliefs about God are enshrined in the doctrine of Trinitarianism, the doctrines were largely formalized at the Council of Nicea and are enshrined in the Nicaene creed. The Trinitarian view emphasizes that God has a will, and that God the Son has two wills, divine and human, though these are never in conflict but joined in the hypostatic union. A small minority of Christians, largely coming under the heading of Unitarianism, in the Mormonism represented by most of Mormon communities, God means Elohim, whereas Godhead means a council of three distinct gods, Elohim, Jehovah, and the Holy Spirit. The Father and Son have perfected, material bodies, while the Holy Spirit is a spirit and this conception differs from the traditional Christian Trinity, in Mormonism, the three persons are considered to be physically separate beings, or personages, but united in will and purpose. As such, the term Godhead differs from how it is used in traditional Christianity and this description of God represents the orthodoxy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, established early in the 19th century. In Islam, God is believed to be the real supreme being, all-powerful and all-knowing creator, sustainer, ordainer. Islam puts an emphasis on the conceptualization of God as strictly singular. He is unique and inherently one, all-merciful and omnipotent, according to the Quran there are 99 Names of God each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of God. All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive divine Arabic name, among the 99 names of God, the most famous and most frequent of these names are the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful. Creation and ordering of the universe is seen as an act of mercy for which all creatures sing his glories and bear witness to his unity. According to the Quran, No vision can grasp Him, and he is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all things

28.
God in Judaism
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God in Judaism is understood to be the absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable being who is the ultimate cause of all existence. Traditional interpretations of Judaism generally emphasize that God is personal, while some interpretations of Judaism emphasize that God is a force or ideal. God has a name, written YHWH in the Hebrew Bible. In Jewish tradition another name of God is Elohim, the name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton. Jews traditionally do not pronounce it, and instead refer to God as HaShem, in prayer this name is substituted with Adonai, meaning Master or Lord. The worship of gods and the concept of God having multiple persons are equally unimaginable in Judaism. The idea of God as a duality or trinity is heretical in Judaism – it is considered akin to polytheism, God, the Cause of all, is one. This does not mean one as in one of series, nor one like a species, nor one as in an object that is made up of many elements, rather, God is a unity unlike any other possible unity. In this way Judaism can be regarded as being similar to panentheism, Kabbalistic tradition holds that the divine consists of ten sefirot. Any belief that an intermediary between humanity and God could be used, whether necessary or even optional, has traditionally been considered heretical, all our prayers should be directed towards God, nothing else should even be considered. Some rabbinic authorities disagreed with this view, notably, Nachmanides was of the opinion that it is permitted to ask the angels to beseech God on our behalf. This argument manifests notably in the Selichot prayer called Machnisay Rachamim, modern printed editions of the Selichot include this prayer. Godhead refers to the aspect or substratum of God that lies behind Gods actions or properties, there is, in truth, no relation in any respect between God and any of Gods creatures. In Kabbalistic thought the term Godhead usually refers to the concept of Ein Sof, the knowability of the Godhead in Kabbalistic thought is no better that what is conceived by rationalist thinkers. As Jacobs puts it, Of God as God is in Godself—Ein Sof—nothing can be said at all, Ein Sof is a place to which forgetting and oblivion pertain. Because concerning all the sefirot, one can search out their reality from the depth of supernal wisdom, from there it is possible to understand one thing from another. However, concerning Ein Sof, there is no aspect anywhere to search or probe, nothing can be known of it, for it is hidden and concealed in the mystery of absolute nothingness. In traditional Judaism, God is conceived of as the eternal, omnipotent and omniscient creator of the universe, God has the power to intervene in the world

29.
God in Christianity
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In Christianity, God is the eternal being who created and preserves all things. Christians believe God to be both transcendent and immanent, although the Judæo-Christian sect of the Ebionites protested against this apotheosis of Jesus, the great mass of Gentile Christians accepted it. This began to differentiate the Gentile Christian views of God from traditional Jewish teachings of the time, in the 8th century, John of Damascus listed eighteen attributes which remain widely accepted. As time passed, theologians developed systematic lists of these attributes, some based on statements in the Bible and this never becomes a tritheism, i. e. this does not imply three Gods. The doctrine of the Trinity can be summed up as, The One God exists in Three Persons and One Substance, as God the Father, God the Son, Trinitarians, who form the large majority of Christians, hold it as a core tenet of their faith. Nontrinitarian denominations define the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in a number of different ways, early Christian views of God are reflected in Apostle Pauls statement in 1 Corinthians, written ca. In John 14,26 Jesus also refers to the Holy Spirit, by the middle of the 2nd century, in Against Heresies Irenaeus had emphasized that the Creator is the one and only God and the maker of heaven and earth. These preceded the presentation of the concept of Trinity by Tertullian early in the 3rd century. This did not exclude either the fact the father of the universe was also the Father of Jesus the Christ or that he had even vouchsafed to adopt as his son by grace. Eastern creeds began with an affirmation of faith in one God and almost always expanded this by adding the Father Almighty, as time passed, theologians and philosophers developed more precise understandings of the nature of God and began to produce systematic lists of his attributes. These varied in detail, but traditionally the attributes fell into two groups, those based on negation and those based on eminence. Throughout the Christian development of ideas about God, the Bible “has been, in Christian theology the name of God has always had much deeper meaning and significance than being just a label or designator. It is not an invention, but has divine origin and is based on divine revelation. This is reflected in the first petition in the Lords Prayer addressed to God the Father, in Revelation 3,12 those who bear the name of God are destined for Heaven. John 17,6 presents the teachings of Jesus as the manifestation of the name of God to his disciples, the Bible usually uses the name of God in the singular, generally using the terms in a very general sense rather than referring to any special designation of God. However, general references to the name of God may branch to other forms which express his multifaceted attributes. Scripture presents many references to the names for God, but the key names in the Old Testament are, God the High and Exalted One, El-Shaddai, in the New Testament Theos, Kyrios and Pater are the essential names. The theological underpinnings of the attributes and nature of God have been discussed since the earliest days of Christianity

30.
God in Islam
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In Islamic theology, God is the all-powerful and all-knowing creator, sustainer, ordainer and judge of everything in existence. Islam emphasizes that God is strictly singular, unique, inherently One, also all-merciful, the Surat 112 Al-Ikhlāş says, He is God, One. He neither begets nor is born, Nor is there to Him any equivalent, in Islam, there are 99 known names of God, each of which evoke a distinct attribute of God. All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive god, among the 99 names of God, the most familiar and frequent of these names are the Compassionate and the Merciful. Creation and ordering of the universe is seen as an act of mercy for which all creatures sing Gods attributes. Allah is the Arabic word referring to God in Abrahamic religions and it is distinguished from ilāh, the Arabic word meaning deity, which could refer to any of the gods worshipped in pre-Islamic Arabia. God is described and referred to in the Quran and hadith by certain names or attributes, the Quran refers to the attributes of God as most beautiful names. According to Gerhard Böwering, They are traditionally enumerated as 99 in number to which is added as the highest Name, there are numerous conventional phrases and expressions invoking God. Islams most fundamental concept is a strict monotheism called tawhid, affirming that God is one, the basic creed of Islam, the Shahada, involves لا إله إلا الله, or, I testify there is no god other than God. Muslims reject the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and divinity of Jesus, according to Vincent J. Tawhid constitutes the foremost article of the Muslim profession. The deification or worship of anyone or anything other than God is the biggest sin in Islam, the entirety of the Islamic teaching rests on the principle of Tawhid. God is the creator of the universe and all the creatures in it, praise is to Allah, Creator of the heavens and the earth, made the angels messengers having wings, two or three or four. He increases in creation what He wills, indeed, Allah is over all things competent. And it is We Who have constructed the heavens with might and verily and we created man from an extract of clay. Then We made him as a drop in a place of settlement, so blessed be Allah, the Best of creators. Be dutiful to your Lord, Who created you from a person and from Him He created his wife. And verily Allah is my Lord and your Lord, the most commonly used names in the primary sources are Al-Rahman, meaning Most Compassionate and Al-Rahim, meaning Most Merciful. God is said to love forgiving, with a hadith stating God would replace a sinless people with one who sinned but still asked repentance

31.
God in Hinduism
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In Hindu monotheism, the concept of God varies from one sect to another. Hinduism is not exclusively monotheistic, and has described as spanning a wide range of henotheism, monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, pandeism, monism, atheism and nontheism etc. This non-dualism postulates the identity of the Self or Atman with the Whole or Brahman, forms of explicit monotheism find mention in the canonical Bhagavad Gita. Explicit monotheism in the form of emotional or ecstatic devotion to an external and personal deity became popular in South India in the early medieval period. Ecstatic devotion to Krishna, a form of Vishnu, gained popularity throughout India during the Middle Ages, ecstatic devotion to Goddess Durga became popular in some parts of India in the later medieval and early modern ages. Vaishnavism, particularly Krishnaism, Shaktism and some forms of Shaivism remain the most explicit forms of worship of a personal God within Hinduism. Other Hindus, such as many of those who practice Shaivism, tend to assume the existence of a singular God, rather they envisage God as an impersonal Absolute, who can be worshipped only in part in a human form. The term Ishvara may refer to any of the monotheistic or monistic conceptions within Hinduism, in Hinduism, Brahman is the all-pervading, supreme, universal Spirit that is the origin and support of the phenomenal universe. Brahman is sometimes referred to as the Absolute or Godhead, Brahman is conceived as personal, impersonal and/or supreme depending on the philosophical school. The sages of the Upanishads teach that Brahman is the essence of material phenomena that cannot be seen or heard. According to Advaita, a human being has realised Brahman as his or her own true self. The Isha Upanishad says, Auṃ – That supreme Brahman is infinite, if you subtract the infinite from the infinite, the infinite remains alone. The sages of the Upanishads made their pronouncements on the basis of experience as an essential component of their philosophical reflection. Several mahā-vākyas from the Upanisads indicate what the principle of Brahma is, In the Upanisads the sages teach that brahman is infinite Being, infinite Consciousness, and infinite Bliss. Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism posits that Brahman cannot be known by empirical means — that is to say, as an object of our consciousness — because Brahman is our very consciousness and being. Therefore, it may be said that moksha, yoga, samādhi, nirvana, etc. do not merely mean to know Brahman, but rather to realise ones brahman-hood, to actually realise that one is and always was Brahman. Indeed, closely related to the Self-concept of Brahman is the idea that it is synonymous with jiva-atma, or individual souls, according to Adi Shankara the nirguna brahman is non-different from the supreme personality, God, whatever qualities we attribute to the divine. By the power of Maya the supreme lord playfully creates multiple worlds and deludes all beings and this world is only relatively real and the real self is not affected by it

32.
God in Jainism
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In Jainism, godliness is said to be the inherent quality of every soul. This quality however is subdued by the association with karmic matter. All souls who have achieved the state of infinite bliss, infinite knowledge, infinite power. Jainism rejects the idea of a deity responsible for the manifestation, creation. According to Jain doctrine, the universe and its constituents have always existed, all the constituents and actions are governed by universal natural laws and perfect soul, an immaterial entity cannot create or affect a material entity like the universe. From the essential perspective, the soul of every living organism is perfect in every way, is independent of any actions of the organism, but the epithet of God is given to the soul in whom its properties manifest in accordance with its inherent nature. There are countably infinite souls in the universe, there are two possible views after this point. One is to look at the soul from the perspective of the soul itself, another view is to consider things apart from the soul and its relationships with the soul. According to this view, the qualities of a soul are subdued due to karmas of the soul, Karmas are the fundamental particles of nature in Jainism. One who achieves this state of soul through right belief, right knowledge and this perfection of soul is called Kevalin. A god thus becomes a liberated soul – liberated of miseries, cycles of rebirth, world, karmas and this is called nirvana or moksha. Jainism does not teach the dependency on any supreme being for enlightenment, the Tirthankara is a guide and teacher who points the way to enlightenment, but the struggle for enlightenment is ones own. Jains believe that to attain enlightenment and ultimately liberation from all karmic bonding, one must practice the principles not only in thought. Such a practice through lifelong work towards oneself is regarded as observing the Mahavrata, Gods can be thus categorized into embodied gods also known as arihantas and non-embodied formless gods who are called Siddhas. Jainism considers the devīs and devas to be souls who dwell in heavens owing to meritorious deeds in their past lives and these souls are in heavens for a fixed lifespan and even they have to undergo reincarnation as humans to achieve moksha. Thus, there are gods in Jainism, all equivalent, liberated. The Self and karmas are separate substances in Jainism, the former living, the attainment of enlightenment and the one who exists in such a state, then those who have achieved such a state can be termed gods. Therefore, beings whove attained omniscience are worshipped as gods, the quality of godliness is one and the same in all of them

Physicist and philosopher Max Bernhard Weinstein wrote that 6th century BC philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon spoke as a pandeist in stating that there was one god which "abideth ever in the selfsame place, moving not at all" and yet "sees all over, thinks all over, and hears all over."

Italian theologian Giordano Bruno was charged with heresy and burned at the stake for propounding what has been deemed by some commentators to be a pandeistic ideology.

Pandeism has been proposed to be a traditional religious view that accords with modern science.

Image of Vardhamana Mahavira, the 24th and last Tirthankara (Photo:Samanar Hills)

Although the siddhas (the liberated beings) are formless and without a body, this is how the Jain temples often depict them.

Idol of Padmāvatī devī, śāsanadevī of Lord Parshvanatha at Walkeshwar Temple. She is one of the most popular demi-goddess amongst the Jains. According to Digambar Terapanth, worship of such deities is considered as mithyātva or wrong belief. However, in the Bispanthi Digambar tradition and the Shwetambar tradition, Padmavati is a popular Jain goddess.

Perichoresis (from Greek: περιχώρησις perikhōrēsis, "rotation") is a term referring to the relationship of the three …

A trinitarian action of grace is implied in sacred art of the type Anna selbdritt: creator Father, redeemer Son, reflexive procession of the Holy Spirit, with the divine Christ-child pointing back at his human mother and grandmother.

The Athanasian Creed, also known as Pseudo-Athanasian Creed or Quicunque Vult (also Quicumque Vult), is a Christian …

Athanasius of Alexandria was traditionally thought to be the author of the Athanasian Creed, and gives his name to its common title.

The Shield of the Trinity, a visual representation of the doctrine of the Trinity, derived from the Athanasian Creed. The Latin reads: "The Father is God, The Son is God, The Holy Spirit is God; God is the Father, God is the Son, God is the Holy Spirit; The Father is not the Son, The Son is not the Father, The Father is not the Holy Spirit, The Holy Spirit is not the Father, The Son is not the Holy Spirit, The Holy Spirit is not the Son."